Press Release – Orchestra Wellington
The new name, Orchestra Wellington, is part of a rebranding strategy reinforcing the orchestra’s core values, says orchestra general manager Adán Tijerina. The orchestra wants to identify more closely with Wellington city and the region where it performs most of its work, he says.

“We’ve had a good relationship with our major sponsor, Vector, for a number of years now. But Orchestra Wellington is a name that better aligns with our long-term goals,” he says.

“You could say Wellington is our turangawaewae, and our new name reflects our loyalty to it. We aim to be an arts organisation that’s responsive to the city we serve.

“This is where our outreach is, at a grassroots level.

“As we’ve gone through the orchestral sector review process, we have sharpened our awareness of who we are and what we do.

“We have focused on who our audience is and how we can best reach out to their communities.”

As the arts capital of New Zealand, Wellington can count on a population of sophisticated classical music lovers. Orchestra Wellington tailors its concerts to them with programmes that are innovative, challenging and fresh.

“That’s reflected in our byline for the past few years, ‘playing for you’.”

Orchestra Wellington draws on a large and flexible pool of freelance Wellington musicians. It is in a position to provide an attainable career pathway for young players.

“We have such superb young players here, thanks to the New Zealand School of Music. Concerts with Orchestra Wellington help build up their proficiency and can serve as a stepping-stone to fulltime work either here or overseas.”

Orchestra Wellington players are helping to build a new generation of young musicians at the earliest level of training too. Through its members, it has close links to Taita’s Arohanui Strings, based on the famous El Sistema training programme, and to the music programme at Raphael House, a Steiner School in Lower Hutt.

The new name is the latest incarnation of the Wellington Regional Orchestra Foundation, which has existed as a legal entity for 62 years. As well as creating its own concert series, the orchestra has provided accompaniment for a large part of all operas, ballets, choral concerts and shows within living memory in Wellington.